


Garmadevata

by SolarMorrigan



Category: The Jungle Book (2016)
Genre: Gen, Prompt Fill, The Man Village
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 17:16:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7516528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolarMorrigan/pseuds/SolarMorrigan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something in the jungle is watching over the village</p>
            </blockquote>





	Garmadevata

**Author's Note:**

> Filled [this](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/715121.html?thread=94462577#t94462577) prompt from Bite Sized Bits of Fic

It began some time ago with a fire. The villagers began to suspect, then, that someone, something, was there.  
  
No, that wasn’t quite right. They had always known something was there. The jungle was mysterious and dangerous, full of creatures and of spirits alike. But with the fire, the terrible, _unseasonable_ fire, they began to suspect there was someone, something, there for them. To protect them.  
  
After all, how else could they explain the sudden blaze that overtook the jungle, so close to their home, and was then so quickly doused without any visible source?  
  
For a time after that, things were quiet. Not unnaturally so, but in comparison to the flames that licked the treetops and came so close to their village… quiet. And then a child went missing.  
  
He was a young thing, no more than four years old, much too young to in the jungle alone. They had searched for him for two days, to no avail. The jungle was thick and dangerous, even to those who lived so close by it, even to the hunters who knew the trails well. The boy’s mother was inconsolable, his father had to be forced to rest, and it seemed to the villagers that the outlook was bleak. And then the child was returned to them.  
  
The boy was unharmed, though a bit dirty for his two days in the jungle. He babbled in his childish way about a _panther_ of all things, who had found him, and about a boy who had returned him to the gates of the village before disappearing into the trees. Most waved off the child’s talk as nonsense or hysteria; he had just spent two days in the jungle, after all. But some looked out into the trees and wondered.  
  
It was not so long after that a young man, new enough to hunting that trails and landmarks were not so obvious to him, found himself lost among the trees and vines, hopelessly turned around and without a clue where to go. Yet he found his way back to the village. He’d glimpsed a panther through the trees, he said, and in his fright he’d run in the opposite direction. Then there was a boy, he said, just barely visible ahead of him. Thinking someone from the village had found him, he’d followed the boy right out into the open, to the gates of the village. But the boy was nowhere to be seen. Some waved off the young man’s words as nonsense, but still more people looked out into the trees and began to believe.  
  
Soon enough, rumors grew and spread. There was a panther in the jungle, who could take the form of man (or else a boy, who could take the form of a panther), who watched over their village, who returned their own kind to them safe and unharmed. Parents comforted their children with stories of this guardian, who put out fires and saved lost little boys. Villagers reported catching glimpses, just now and then, of their protector watching their homes through the trees. Some dismissed these claims as nonsense, but even they wished to believe that somewhere deep in that terrible jungle, someone, something, cared for them.  
  
And somewhere deep in that terrible jungle, a young man lounged against a tree, comfortable in the shade beside a large brown bear and speaking calmly with a panther.  
  
“I still don’t think it’s wise for you to spend so much time near the Man Village.” The panther grumbled.  
  
“Bagheera, you’re close by nearly as often as I am,” Mowgli replied with a satisfied smile, “Besides, I’m sure they barely even notice we’re there.”


End file.
